Predators enjoy more than just food!

Well, as the topic implies; they do. The giants of Felarya are just as complex and nuanced of beings as the humans they mercilessly eat by the handful, with things they do for fun and things they hate, etc. However this aspect does not always get enough attention.

I've recently been thinking about character profiles and such, and in the process, come to the conclusion that I myself am rather guilty of this specific problem, personality, quirks and general demeanor aren't too troublesome, but it's hard to come up with hobbies and aspirations for someone who lives utterly without a technologically-based infrastructure, or even (outside of fairies, harpies and perhaps a few other races) anything resembling a human social structure. Frequently hanging out with a few giant friends is not close to the same as even a village-sized community.

So, I thought I'd make a topic here for general ideas relating to what those lovable giant predators might enjoy as non-food-related recreation/ambitions. Not at all because I'm desperate for ideas or anything! No. This is for everyone.

Examples I've managed to come up with so far, inspired from other people's characters, mostly Karbo;

Art: This one is especially good. You don't need modern civilization to appreciate/practice art.

Music: An obvious choice for mermaids, but works for just about anyone.

Dance: Another excellent one. Scarlet elves are sexy. :3

Magic Study: Vivian seems to be into this at least somewhat, and it's pretty cool, though requires a bit more explanation on how they got into it.

Collecting things: Subeta being the prime example of this.

...And that's all I've got off the top of my head. Please feel free to share your ideas, or just general thoughts on the subject. It's a pertinent topic to new writers and old hands alike.

(Please excuse me if this has been a topic already. I did a couple of quick searches and got nothing, but I'm to lazy to spend the time on a proper archive dive)

You can check many profiles and see that in many of them, there are many other things in their personalities, backgrounds and other stuff that will help you see that even predators have more than eating in their lives. Thing is that it is hard to look for such things and, in many cases, when creating a predator profile you usually create a 'feeding/hunting habits' section. I've done it in order to separate predators from other characters, but I also like to give them preds some more flesh. They're not just 'man-eating machines', they have their own lives outside hunting and eating.

Also, I think that you cold add knitting to the list, maybe making it a bit dridder-specific for obvious reasons.

Speaking of Dridders, don't forget plotting world domination (although it's hardly exclusive to them). Also, exploring seems like a good hobby, as well as inventing (melany), sparring, and good ol' fashioned sex.

I know just what you mean! ^.^ I've taken some of these things and incorporated them into my characters, myself. For example, my small naga, Beryl, is an artist who paints with three brushes at once, and my giant mermaid, Zelkova, is obsessed with collecting seashells. ^_^ I hope other people can do this with their characters, too!

My mantoid, Manda, has taught herself to make simplistic clothing from the hides of animals she kills for food. I hadn't thought of doing much with this aspect of her character, but now I think I'll develop it some more. My fairy, Anastasia, is a diehard collector, but that's pretty much to catalyst for the plot of the story I'm currently writing.

Feadraug wrote:

Also, I think that you cold add knitting to the list, maybe making it a bit dridder-specific for obvious reasons.

Haha, that's epic! Just imagine a dridder who obsessively knits, covering her whole territory in beautiful tapestries and curtains, all hanging from the trees! What would your average explorer think stumbling through an area like that?

EdgedWeapon wrote:

as well as inventing (melany)

Ahh, Yes! I totally forgot about Melanys inventing ways. Though she takes a somewhat artistic approach to it, I suppose. xD

Silk isn't kitted, it's woven. Tapestries are also woven, you can't really knit them.
But yes, it's an interesting idea.

Good idea for a thread. I imagine most predators enjoy playing games with friends. For those who are small enough, hide-and-seek is an obvious example. For giants, it would depend very much on the species; maybe we can come up with a few ideas.

As for individual passtimes:

Milly has her garden, and enjoys keeping up with what's going on in the Alsumi society - including listening to their latest stories. Jissy loves to swim. Nikilli (a minor character) is an eclectic collector. She mostly collects women's clothes (and wears them), but also keeps anything she finds for instance in a human caravan and takes a fancy to - such as a clock, or vases. She enjoys mixing clothes of different origins to suit her own sense of style (and sometimes eats carinra leaves to wear clothes matching her now skin pigmentation). (She also enjoys mental arithmatic - a good way of passing the time on her own.) Lucilya doesn't collect, but she enjoys finding new things, and ascribing some sort of entertaining use to them. Any new object she finds, she'll see if it might be turned into a game, to be played by herself or to be shared with others. All it needs is a little creativity, to make the world a constant source of fun...

Ahh, a good topic for ideas heh. Might as well share what my characters do in their spare time.

My giant treant, Goro, spends some of his time trying to 'train' jaykay birds somewhat so they might be helpful or at least a little less annoying as he tends to sleep a lot and they ruin that very well heh. Being somewhat stuck he tries to see what he can do with what magic abilities he has to pass the time- mostly to see how far he can extend his will and see just a little more than what he does see in his corner of the world. He doesn't really see much in the way of needing it for survival purposes due to how very few things could really threaten a tree dwarfing giant predators, but he does enjoy dabbling in it to entertain company as they come by, but mostly just to make Liora smile if he can. He honestly can pass the time enjoying himself just relaxing and taking in the quiet scenary and thinking over memories he has gathered over the years and thinking of what might still come later.

Liora's hobbies mostly come with trying to find new pets. Currently she has taken a liking to jaykay birds, which is how Goro is being forced to endure and have to train them...since she doesn't have much of the patience for a prolonged experience of that and just likes to get new pets. Most of these pets are just wildlife that catches her eye, so far she hasn't had a 'human' pet or such simply because she likes the taste too much and they're even noisier to her than other animals so it makes more sense to keep them as food . When she isn't doing that she spends most of her time just wandering and 'patrolling' her territory of the Chidokai forest, mostly to see if anyone new has arrived to catch her impulsive interests. Visits to Ciel are common if she is bored enough, though she will sneak away and try to find her new mermaid friend if she can as well without them knowing.

And of course I have to include Ciel's hobbies, because she's my main character heh . She spends most of her time with a normal routine when at home- mostly checking up on her immediate area and keeping things in order before she sets out to do anything. This ranges from just checking the few web traps for anything new to hunting/scavenging for materials if something needs repairs (such as the leather vest she wears or the bag/items carries). She takes comfort from following a set of routine daily chores even if they do seem like they could be boring, it's just something that she's grown to feel normal doing. One part of this though she does take a bit more enjoyment out of, which is practicing combat techniques so as not to lose her edge entirely in regards to her training back in the dridder forest. It's sort of a reminder to her of how she grew up there and she does still like to think she might meet more people on the occassions she does travel like the stories she heard growing up- and she wouldn't want to embarass herself in front of them heh. Aside from that she does have one top hobby- and that is fishing. She doesn't get to do it too often between her own tasks and Liora's visits, but it just unwinds her the best of any activity she does.

But yes, those are what some of my characters do heh, sorry if I got a little carried away .

Anime-Junkie wrote:

Silk isn't kitted, it's woven. Tapestries are also woven, you can't really knit them.
But yes, it's an interesting idea.

I take it in account in order to fix that. This happens when English isn't my first language. ^^U

Feadraug wrote:

I take it in account in order to fix that. This happens when English isn't my first language. ^^U

Heh, don't worry, English is my first (and only) language, and I made the same error. I just don't know the first thing about fabric. For which I feel absolutely no shame whatsoever.

French snack wrote:

A ton of helpful stuff

Thank you! That was actually quite helpful and inspiring.

Another source of inspiration that just occurred to me comes from stuff I used to do as a kid; sand castles! Just imagine, they'd be nearly the size of actual castles!

PrinnyDood wrote:

Another source of inspiration that just occurred to me comes from stuff I used to do as a kid; sand castles! Just imagine, they'd be nearly the size of actual castles!

Ooh! That raises some amusing possibilities in terms of how smaller species might interact with them.

French snack wrote:

PrinnyDood wrote:

Another source of inspiration that just occurred to me comes from stuff I used to do as a kid; sand castles! Just imagine, they'd be nearly the size of actual castles!

Ooh! That raises some amusing possibilities in terms of how smaller species might interact with them.

That's actually a really good thought! I might have to do something with that in a future story, there's some fun stuff one could do with that.

Well I can certainly see how this problem arose...

In real life, predators spend most of their time ether searching for food or resting to conserve energy.

Still, I haven't really come up with much other then Navi of the Bloody Talons and her hoarding of Airships and other miscellania.

Allow me to approach this methodically and rationally. The heart of all this is Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs.



How this hierarchy works is that as "lower" needs are met, the individual moves on to craving higher needs. (As a side-note, many psychologists believe that this is why depression is increasingly common in first-world countries. People get no sense of satisfaction from removing lower needs, as it is easy to acquire food and safety, but they have trouble attaining higher-level ones and feel unsatisfied.)

For instance, when you're hungry, sex seems a little less appealing than food does. Trust me, when I'm sleep-deprived, all of my daydreams are about my bed and falling asleep... not fine asses and heavy weapons, like they usually are.

I'd imagine that preds are a little more preoccupied with those lower two than the average "civilized" person in our world is. I'd also imagine that for more solitary species, the third tier may be a little different. "Boredom" would be less common, since achieving needs is not so easy, but it would not be impossible.

Well Katrika is a HUGE (no pun intended) reader, Tanya collected wines, Alestor likes to go fishing and Velvet likes to collect poems.

ZionAtriedes wrote:

. . . all of my daydreams are about my bed and falling asleep... not fine asses and heavy weapons, like they usually are.

OK, I couldn't help but laugh there. Those are pretty good choices as far as daydreams go though, I must admit.

But yeah, you do make an interesting point, that when getting enough to eat on a day-to-day basis is anything but certain, less vital activities become lower priority. Though from a purely meta-perspective, it's still important to make sure characters don't drift into 'sexy eating machine' territory as well, just because those types of characters make for less interesting stories/whatnot. But at the same time, it's probably not necessary, and perhaps even a touch unrealistic, for them to have extremely time-intensive, all-consuming (pun, haha) hobbies.


Another one that springs to mind is cooking. Yeah, that seem like going in the wrong direction at first glance, but the careful, artful and intricate preparation of a citroise fruit, for example, is very much a different activity from just grabbing one and chewing. Obviously most predators prefer food live and wiggling, but if it's an unmoving vegetable/fruit anyway, why not have some fun with it? Many people consider cooking a form of art, anyway.